Feeding of laundry flatwork



May 6, 1969 E. TAYLOR 3,442,036

FEEDING OF LAUNDRY FLATWORK Filed Sept. 24,1965 Sheet I Y of 3 May 6, 1969 Filed Sept. 24, 1965 E. TAYLOR FEEDING OF LAUNDRY FLATWORK Sheet ay 6, 9 E. TAYLOR "3,442,036 I FEEDING OF LAUNDRY FLATWORK Filed Se'pt. 24, 1965 Sheet 3 of3 angler United States Patent 3,442,036 FEEDING 0F LAUNDRY FLATWORK Ernest Taylor, Nottingham, England, assignor to Manlove, Alliott & Co., Limited, Nottingham, England Filed Sept. 24, 1965, Ser. No. 489,919 Int. Cl. D06f 67/04; D06c 3/06; B65l1 29/68 US. Cl. 38143 7 Claims This invention is concerned with the feeding of laun dry flatwork and more specifically with the straightening and removal of creases from individual pieces of work, such as sheets and tablecloths, in readiness for ironing.

In modern laundry practice, sheets and similar flatwork pieces are fed in succession, after laundering and while still damp, into a rotary ironing machine or calender which operates at high speed. For good results it is important that each piece should as far as possible, be straightened and freed from folds or creases as it enters the ironer and it has in the past been a problem for the laundry operatives to perform this work fast enough to keep the ironing machine supplied to capacity.

Recently, equipment has been devised that relieves the operatives of some of the work of hand-smoothing of the pieces, in that each sheet has its trailing edge drawn out straight by a device employing a current of air. It is an object of the invention to improve on this known technique.

According to the present invention, each sheet or like fiatwork piece is fed to spreading and straightening means that is arranged to perform two smoothing and straightening operations thereon in sequence the first on one transverse edge of the sheet and the second on the opposite edge after the sheet has been turned, or partially turned, endwise.

In the preferred form, the sheet on its way into the ironing machine encounters two similar edge-straightening devices disposed in series along its path and the sheet is turned during feeding so that the two edge-straightening devices act on opposite edges of the sheet, each edge being operated on while it is, in effect, a trailing edge. These straightening devices may each rely on an air current for achieving the desired straightening and smoothing.

The actual turning of the sheet can be accomplished manually by operatives, or automatically by the feeding machine itself.

By this means provision is made for smoothing and straightening both transverse edges of the sheet, instead of only the one trailing edge as hitherto, and this, therefore, constitutes an important advance in laundry flatwork feeding technique.

Various arrangements according to the invention will now be described by way of example and with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings, in which:

FIGURES 1, 2 and 3 are diagrammatic side elevations of three sheet feeding arrangements.

FIGURE 1 of the drawings is a diagrammatic side elevation of a laundry flatwork feeding installation in which a sheet spreader unit 11 is placed at the input end of an ironing machine 12 and there is a first edge-straightening device on the spreader and a second on the ironer. Between the two, each sheet is turned over manually by operatives who are helped in this by the delivery conveyor of the spreader 11, as will become apparent.

The spreader 11 comprises a frame on which are mounted two horizontal top rollers 13 spaced in the principal direction of feeding and between which a carriage runs horizontally to and fro in the direction at right angles to the direction of feeding. The purpose of the carriage 10 is to deposit sheets in succession on to the rollers 13, these sheets being drawn alternately from op- 3,442,036 Patented May 6, 1969 posite sides of the spreader as described in more detail in US. Letters Patent No. 3,231,267, issued Jan. 25, 1966, to Harry Beam and Edward John Appleton, and relating to a feeding device for ironing machines. The carriage 10 is provided with clips 22 that grip the side edge of each sheet while it is being drawn across and release the sheet automatically when it has reached a central position over the rollers 13.

When a sheet has dropped on to the rollers 13 the front and back ends of it overhang the two rollers. The rollers 13 are motor driven and the sheet immediately commences to travel forward toward the forward part of unit frame where there is mounted a delivery conveyor 14. Meanwhile the trailing end of the sheet has dropped into the vicinity of the first edge-straightening device 23. This consists of a vertical plate 15 down the face of which a stream of air is blown from an air box 24 through louvres 25. By this means the trailing edge of the sheet is smoothed out and freed from creases and folds as it travels up the plate 15 while the sheet is being fed .forward toward the conveyor 14; this smoothing and straightening action is described in more detail in US. Letters Patent No. 3,315,385, issued Apr. 25, 1967, to Ernest Taylor, relating to improvements in the feeding of laundry fiatwork.

The sheet drops down progressively from the rollers 13 on to the conveyor 14 and is again fed forward by the conveyor. Two operatives stand at the gap 26 between the sheet spreader 11 and the ironer 12, one at each side of the machines, and they carry each sheet forward from the spreader to the ironer. In doing this they allow the front end of the sheet to drop down over the end of the conveyor 14 and they pick up the rear edge of the sheet when that arrives on the conveyor and place it on the feed-in conveyor 27 mounted on the frame of the ironer 12. In this way the sheet is turned over; the edge that was initially the trailing edge, and was straightened by the edge-straightening device 23, enters the ironer first as the front edge of the sheet, while the leading edge that drops over the front end of the conveyor 14 becomes the new trailing edge and falls on to the second edgestraightening device 28 at the input end of the ironer 12.

The second edge-straightening device is similar to the first, consisting of a vertical plate 16 down the face of which a stream of air is blown from an air box 17 through louvres 18. It smooths out the second edge of the sheet like the first removing any creases or folds therefrom. Thus the sheet passes on into the ironer with both its leading and trailing edges straightened.

FIGURE 2 shows a modified arrangement incorporating automatic and manual sheet turning.

The spreader carriage 10 and the rollers 13 are as before but now constitute a third conveyor means in the sheet-feeding assembly, since the conveyor 14 is mounted on a frame structure which is to a large degree, separate from the frame of the spreader conveyor and is spaced a short distance from the nearer of the two rollers 13, so that there is a gap 30 into which a sheet can drop, and the first edge-straightening device 23 is now positioned at the upstream end of the conveyor .14.

As a sheet is fed forward by the rollers 13 its leading end drops down into the gap 30 to encounter the first edge-straightening device 23. At a level somewhat above that of the conveyor 14, and almost directly under the downstream one of the rollers 13, there is a row of nozzles 37 to deliver an intermittent forward air blast. When the sheet has dropped a certain distance into the gap 30 the air blast commences and impinges on the sheet, causing the upper, trailing edge of the sheet to be projected forward on to the conveyor 14 which carries it towards the ironing machine. The initiation of the air blast from the nozzles 37 is achieved in manner known per se in the art under the control of the sheet itself; thus the sheet may interrupt a photo-cell beam when it reaches a predetermined point in its travel, or it may depress a feeler wire operating an electric switch. As the sheet passes forward on the conveyor 14 the transverse lower edge is drawn up the plate 15 and is thereby smoothed and freed from creases by the edge-straightening device 23. The operatives then pick up the last-mentioned edge, which has become the trailing edge and has now been freed from creases, and transfer it to the feed conveyor 27 on the ironing machine.

The sheet is thus turned over twice, the first time automatically and the second time manually, after which the second transverse edge will be smoothed out by the edgestraightening device 28 on the ironer.

The arrangement shown in FIGURE 2 provides for automatic turnover after spreading but before smoothing. This arrangement is preferred to that shown in FIGURE 1 since the height of the carriage 10 can be lower. When a sheet is spread by being pulled across the rollers 13 the leading edge must hang clear of the conveyor 14; consequently, in the arrangement of FIGURE 1 when the conveyor 14 is set at a satisfactory working height the carriage 10 must be at least 3 higher. Another advantage of the second arrangement is that the conveyor 14, which gives forward motion to the sheet, provides more traction than the rollers 13 and consequently there is less tendency for the sheet to be pulled back by the action of the air stream of the edgestraightening device 23.

In the arrangement of FIGURE 2, a short horizontal drag plate 38 projects at the top of the second edgestraightening device 28, the sheet being drawn over the edge of this drag plate as it is trailed up the plate 16. This is found to improve the efficiency of the smoothing and straightening operation.

The control of the intermittent air blast from the nozzles 37, that is to say the turning on of the blast as already mentioned, and the subsequent turning off of the blast when a sheet has passed forward on the conveyor 14, may be under the automatic control of photo-electric cells, or electric miniature switches having light spring-leaf operating arms that are depressed by the sheets themselves.

FIGURE 3 shows an arrangement in which turnover of the sheet is accomplished entirely automatically. In this case the sheet spreader 11 is the same as in FIGURE 1 except that the conveyor 14 is dispensed with and a turnover device 48 and roller 47 are added. The spreaderll and the ironer 12 are also moved up close to one another so that the ironer can receive the sheets direct from the rollers 13 of the spreader without the intervening conveyor, the input end of the ironer being directly under the roller 47. Preferably, the turnover device is a row of air jets, such as was provided by the nozzles 37 in the previous arrangement. However, as an alternative a mechanical arrangement is illustrated in FIGURE 3, in which the turnover device is a hinged plate. The turnover plate 48 is movable by a solenoid 40 from the downward sloping retracted position shown up to a horizontal or nearly horizontal position.

As with the arrangement of FIGURE 1, the edge of a sheet that is initially the trailing edge is smoothed out by the first edge-straightener 23 while the sheet is being fed forward on the rollers 13.

The turnover plate 48 is initially retracted as shown, so that as the sheet leaves the downstream one of the two rollers 13 it drops down between that roller and the end of the ironer 12 to bring its front end into the vicinity of the second edge-straightening device 28 on the ironer. However, before all the sheet has left the downstream roller 13 the turnover 'plate 48 is automatically raised and this flips the trailing end of the sheet forward on to the roller 47 whence it is c i d on into the i o e as the new leading end. The operation of the turnover plate is controlled by the passage of the sheet itself, as in the case of the air blast from the nozzles in the arrangement of FIGURE 2. What was originally the leading end now becomes the trailing end and is drawn up the plate 16 of the straightening device 28 as the sheet is fed into the ironer. Both transverse edges of the sheet are therefore smoothed out without the intervention of operatives at all.

It is preferred that the downward air stream of the second edge-straightener 28 be not turned on until the front end of the sheet entering the ironer 12 has become gripped under a trapping roller 41, and indeed in all the arrangements described and illustrated the air streams of the edge-straightening devices may be intermittent and controlled by the passage of the sheets, if desired.

What I claim is:

1. A laundry flatwork feeding device, comprising a conveyor frame means and first conveyor means thereon feeding laundry fiatwork articles in succession along a conveying course leading toward a laundary ironing machine, a first edge-straightening device mounted at the upstream end of said frame means and operating on the trailing edge of each fiatwork article to straighten and smooth it, further frame means disposed downstream of said conveyor means and a second edge-straightening device mounted on said further frame means and operating likewise on the trailing edge of the flatwork article but after said article has been turned over end for end whereby both end edges of said article are straightened and smoothed in succession.

2. A feeding device according to claim 1, and comprising second conveyor means mounted on said further frame means downstream of said first conveyor means,

' said second edge-straightening device being disposed at the upstream end of said second conveyor means.

3. A feeding device according to claim 1, wherein each straightening device employs an air current for achieving the straightening and smoothing.

4. A feeding device according to claim 2, and comprising third frame means upstream of said first conveyor means, third conveyor means mounted on said third frame means and feeding the flatwork articles in succession to said first conveyor means.

5. A feeding device according to claim 2, and including turnover means automatically acting on the trailing portion of the flatwork article as it leaves the first conveyor means whereby the trailing end of said article on the first conveyor means becomes the leading end.

6. A feeding device according to claim 5, wherein the turnover means comprises intermittently-operating air jets.

7. A feeding device according to claim 1, wherein each edge-straightening device comprises a downwardly-extending plate over which the trailing portion of the fiatwork article drapes, and air-blowing means directing a current of air down said plate.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 3,370,849 2/1968 Martin 38143 X 2,635,370 4/ 1953 Mann et al. 38-143 2,976,625 3/ 1961 Bazelmans 382 3,136,081 6/1964 Fredholm 38l43 2,635,370 4/ 1953 Mann et al. 38-143 2,976,625 3/ 1961 Bazelmans 38-2 3,136,081 6/1964 Fredholrn 38-143 PATRICK D. LAWSON, Primary Examiner.

GEORGE V. LARKIN, Assistant Examiner.

U.S. Cl. X.R- 26-54; 271-69 

1. A LAUNDRY FLATWORK FEEDING DEVICE, COMPRISING A CONVEYOR FRAME MEANS AND FIRST CONVEYOR MEANS THEREON FEEDING LAUNDRY FLATWORK ARTICLES IN SUCCESSION ALONG A CONVEYING COURSE LEADING TOWARD A LAUNDARY IRONING MACHINE, A FIRST EDGE-STRAIGHTENING DEVICE MOUNTED AT THE UPSTREAM END OF SAID FRAME MEANS AND OPERATING ON THE TRAILING EDGE OF EACH FLATWORK ARTICLE TO STRAIGHTEN AND SMOOTH IT, FURTHER FRAME MEANS DISPOSED DOWNSTREAM OF SAID CONVEYOR MEANS AND A SECOND EDGE-STRAIGHTENING DEVICE MOUNTED ON SAID FURTHER FRAME MEANS AND OPERATING 